Sunday, 1 March 2015

Finland 2015 - The Entire UMK Final

It's a rare thing that a whole national final is so bonkers and so interesting that you wouldn't have begrudged a single song from its line up treading the Eurovision stage. From its excellent, unexpected opening number to the pure joy on the faces of PKN as they fumbled through the reprise, it was a delight from start to end, and surely must stand as the landmark other national finals should aspire to if they want to represent their national music scenes as thoroughly as they can.

I might have had my issues with Shava and their culturally dubious schtick, but they performed the heck out of that song and deserved better than their bottom ranking in the televote. Satin Circus offered a strong, contemporary pop song, held back by a flimsy chorus, and Solju represented the people from the North with a lovely floaty piece of folksy pop. The unspellable indie rock band had a singer you just couldn't take your eyes off - even if he did border on the parody at times - Norlan The Missionary added a touch of honest Caribbean warmth the the proceedings, and Opera Skaala were just batshit bonkers in the way that only Eurovision can muster. The home straight offered the perky yet weirdly uplifting Jouni Aslak, the glorious crusty punks PKN and terrifying totalitarian metal opera of Angelo De Nile - from song one to song nine and all that came between it was a thrilling, ear bursting two-and-a-bit hours of excitement and thrills that would be hard to surpass.

What's this blog for?

Every year, the Eurovision Song Contest chucks up some amazing songs, but only a tiny few ever make it through to the televised final stages. For the couple of dozen that make it to Eurovision proper, there are hundreds that fall by the wayside in the semi-finals and local qualification tournaments. And very often that is where the true gems are to be found.

So Eurovision Apocalypse is here to dredge the best (and occasionally worst) of them out of the musical nether regions, as well as some of the other greatest oddities the contest has thrown up over the last fifty-odd years.